Say Goodbye for Now Read online

  She had Justin on her metal examining table, with a towel to catch the blood. She had flushed out the long, open wound in Justin’s scalp and squeezed something from a bottle onto the area. Now she stood beside the table holding a wad of sterile gauze against the boy’s scalp.

  Justin’s eyes were open, staring up into the doctor’s bright fluorescent lamp. But Pete couldn’t tell how much he was taking in.

  “Okay, ma’am, but . . .”

  Then Pete hardly knew how to go on.

  He could think of a million endings to that sentence. Mostly, though, he was lost in an unfocused feeling of dread. The doctor was supposed to hold pressure to stop the bleeding. Not Pete. Pete might hurt his friend. He might do it wrong. He might make everything worse.

  Meanwhile he was keeping the doctor waiting. And, more to the point, keeping the emergency situation waiting.

  “Pete, I need you here. We have to move this along.”

  “Where are you going to be?”

  “I’m going to go call the plant and see if I can reach his dad. You know his dad’s first name?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “You know Justin’s last name?”

  “Yes, ma’am. It’s Bell. Justin, what’s your dad’s first name?”

  But Justin seemed to be gone again. Faded out into a land Pete couldn’t understand. Gone where Pete couldn’t follow. He’d gone there before, Pete reminded himself. As Pete was helping him into the wagon. And he’d come back.

  He’ll come back again, Pete told himself. He’ll come back.

  But he also knew there were no guarantees.

  “Pete!” the doctor snapped, breaking him out of his trance. “I need you here now.”

  Pete did as he was told. He moved to the table and cautiously placed his hand on the gauze pad.

  Then the doctor was gone. She hurried out of the room, and it was just Pete and his grievously injured friend. And if something went wrong now, Pete was on his own. At least for the minute it would take him to find her and get her back in the room.

  He looked down at Justin, who returned Pete’s gaze with eyes that seemed reasonably focused.

  “Oh good,” he said. “You’re back.”

  Justin said nothing. Just looked up into Pete’s face. Pete could see lines on Justin’s face, track marks made by his tears sliding through the blood.

  “Who did this to you?” Pete asked.

  Justin didn’t answer.

  “Did you know them?”

  “No,” Justin said.

  “Am I hurting you the way I’m pressing on your head?”

  “No,” Justin said again. “I mean, it’s okay.”

  “Did they say why?”

  Justin turned his eyes away.

  Pete looked up, only to be reminded that he and Justin were not alone in the room after all. Prince was lying in his kennel cage with his head held high, watching the two of them with great interest. In his small golden eyes Pete saw concern.

  Prince was smart enough to know trouble when he saw it.

  “What’s your dad’s first name?” Pete asked, still looking Prince in the eye. Still sharing concern in that visual line of communication.

  He mostly asked as a way of checking whether Justin was still with him.

  “Calvin,” Justin said.

  But by then it was too late to go tell Dr. Lucy anyway.

  Chapter Seven: Dr. Lucy

  “Falco Manufacturing,” said a gruff male voice on the line.

  The man sounded as though Dr. Lucy were already troubling him. Already wasting his time. And she hadn’t even said hello yet.

  “I need to talk to one of your workers. A Mr. Bell.”

  Silence. And what might have been a sigh.

  “We don’t pull men off the line for phone calls,” the voice said.

  “This is an emergency.”

  “What kind of emergency?”

  “His son has been seriously injured.”

  Another belligerent pause. Or maybe she was reading too much into the silence. But probably not.

  “Last name again?”

  “Bell.”

  “First name?”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know it.”

  “We have more than one Bell here.”

  “I’m looking for the one who’s new in town.”

  Silence.

  “The one with a young son.”

  Silence.

  “With dark skin.”

  “Oh,” the man said. “Why didn’t you say so?” Then, obviously not to her—but without covering the phone in any way—he said, “Frank. Go pull Calvin Bell off the line. Tell him there’s been an emergency with his son.”

  He never came back on the phone with her. Just set the receiver down.

  She could hear what sounded like a cigarette lighter firing up, which made her want to light one of her own. But she’d left them back in the examining room.

  She pulled back the curtain and looked out onto her own front porch.

  The wagon sat abandoned there, puddled with blood. Small drips of blood marked her front porch in a path to the door.

  She wondered if the boy would need a transfusion. She should have taken his blood pressure. Part of her felt she should hang up and go do that right now. But Calvin Bell was about to pick up the phone, having been told there was an emergency.

  Besides, barring a stroke of luck, it was unlikely they would have a match for a blood donor until the father arrived.

  She let the curtain fall closed again and wondered how long the boy had sat bleeding before Pete happened along and found him.

  And she also wondered why he’d sat bleeding.

  “Hello?”

  A new voice came on the line, and she knew it was the right one because it was laced with the panic only a parent can display.

  “Calvin Bell?”

  “Yes.”

  “You have a son named Justin?”

  “Yes. Tell me what happened. Is he okay?”

  “He’s injured.”

  “But he’s alive.”

  “Yes. He’s alive.”

  A brief moment while the man breathed. Swallowed down, or shrugged off, the worst of what he had been feeling.

  “What happened to him?”

  “We’re not quite sure yet.”

  “He had some kind of accident?”

  “No. It doesn’t seem like it was an accident.” She paused, but then went off in the necessary direction. He needed to digest that information, but he could do it in a moment. First things first. “Listen. Mr. Bell. I need your permission to treat him.”

  “Of course. Whatever he needs.”

  “I’m a licensed doctor but I don’t have an actual practice in this area. Or anywhere else anymore. He was brought to my home. I’m not sure he doesn’t need to go to the hospital. But apparently the men who hurt him told him not to go to the hospital or the police. So of course he doesn’t want to do that.”

  She waited for his reaction. It took a few seconds.

  “But he may need to,” was all Calvin Bell said.

  But it was clear there was more. She could almost hear what he didn’t say, too. Or at the very least she could feel the weight, the pull, of his not saying the balance of what was on his mind.

  “He may be right that they’ll only make it worse if he does,” she said.

  “Can you do what a hospital can do?”

  “No. Well. Yes and no. I have all the training the doctors there have. Maybe more, in this neighborhood. But I don’t have access to all the equipment they have. Here’s what I can do: I can stitch him up to stop the bleeding. I can x-ray anything I think might be broken. My biggest concern is the head wound, because I’m sure he has a concussion. Which could be dangerous. Potentially, at least. There could be complications. But I can monitor his condition. And if I think he needs to be hospitalized I can get him there fast. And if not, we can avoid . . . well, that different set of complications.”

  “You
honestly think they’re watching the hospital?” he asked. His voice sounded full of a dread wonder, as if poking the world to see how horrible it might prove itself to be.

  “I have no idea,” she said.

  A silence fell.

  “Tell me where you are,” he said. “I have to get out there.”

  “Do you have a car?”

  “No. But I could take the bus. How far are you from a bus route?”

  “A good four and a half miles.”

  Another silence. In this one, Dr. Lucy thought she heard defeat. The dull thud of options dropping away.

  She hurried back into the examining room.

  Pete seemed ecstatic to see her. Inordinately relieved. Even under the circumstances.

  “How’s he doing?” she asked.

  “Aw, heck, I don’t know. You’re the doctor. Did you get his dad?”

  “Yes. Any changes?”

  “Not as I can see, ma’am.”

  “Okay, here’s how it’s going to go, Pete. I’m going to stitch up his head and bandage it. I’m going to give him a simple neurological exam—”

  “I don’t know what that is.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Just keep listening.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She moved closer and relieved Pete of his job holding the gauze. She pulled it gently away from the injured scalp. The wound had stopped bleeding.

  She hurried to the sink to scrub up again.

  “I’m going to clean him up some. Wash off all this blood so we’ll see more about where he’s injured. I’m going to take his blood pressure to make sure he didn’t lose too much. Then I’m going to x-ray him to see if anything’s broken. And then comes the part you won’t like.”

  She waited for a reaction from him, but he didn’t have one. Or, more likely, he kept it to himself. He said nothing. Just waited for her to go on.

  “Then if I’m satisfied his condition will likely hold for twenty minutes or so, I’m going to leave him here with you and go get his dad.”

  Dr. Lucy could actually see Pete swallow, but he said nothing.

  “But . . . ma’am . . .”

  “I’m sorry, Pete. I know this is a little scary for you. And I’m only going to do it when I’m pretty sure he’ll be okay for twenty minutes.”

  “Pretty sure,” he repeated.

  “Look, I’m sorry, honey, but I have to get his dad back here.” She paused in her hand-washing motions briefly, wondering where the “honey” had come from. But she didn’t have time to wonder. She had a wound to close, and it wasn’t going to suture itself. “Pete. Go sit down and put your head between your knees and don’t watch this. It’ll make you faint.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said.

  But he didn’t sit down. Just moved to the window and stared out in the direction of the horse pasture.

  “Pete. Sit down.”

  Silence. No motion. At least not on Pete’s end of the room. She moved back to the table. She was ready to begin suturing. She looked down into the face of Justin, who looked back with clear eyes.

  “You okay, son?” she asked him.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You ready to get that stitched up?”

  “Ready as I expect I’ll get, ma’am.”

  She looked up at Pete again, who stared back.

  “With all due respect, ma’am,” Pete said, “I’m not much on the idea of sitting today.”

  “Oh. Right,” she said. “Sorry. I forgot.”

  “I didn’t realize until I got off the phone,” Calvin Bell said, “that this meant you’d be leaving him at your house all alone.”

  He’d barely sat down on the bench seat of her station wagon when he said it.

  “He’s not exactly alone,” she said.

  She glanced over at him as she pulled away. Because she was afraid of him.

  Not because of anything he had said or done, or anything he was. Except that he was a man, and a stranger. And a parent. And he was upset. Though hopefully not at her. But upset is a funny thing. It looks for places to direct itself. It’s an emotion given to action, and it needs somewhere to go. Even if it has to make something up as it goes along.

  He was a compact man, not very big. But strong looking. In many ways, he was a dead ringer for his son. Small stature. Dark skinned. Hair cropped close. Glasses.

  Taking him in with her eyes made her feel better. There was something . . . for a second she couldn’t quite find the word. Civilized. There was something civil about him. Compared to most of the men she had met.

  He returned her stare and she looked away.

  “I’m glad to hear that,” he said. “Who’s with him?”

  “Well. It’s not ideal. It’s not anyone with medical training. It’s not even an adult. It’s just his friend. But I want you to know I gave him a very thorough exam before I left him. I’m not convinced that nothing could possibly go wrong in the medium run. I’m a little worried about swelling on his brain. Not that I think he has any at this time. But it could still happen. In that case we rush him to the hospital. But after my exam I was confident that nothing life-or-death was going to happen in the space of twenty minutes. And I knew it was important to get you to him.”

  She waited. She winced inwardly.

  It’s a very delicate space, she knew, between a parent and a child. Not a good place to thrust yourself. And she knew that leaving Justin with Pete was not one hundred percent without risk.

  Nothing in life really is, she thought.

  She waited for some reaction from him. Watched him from the corner of her eye, but there were no outward tells.

  “Justin has a friend?” he asked, his voice heavy with wonder and almost at the point of cracking.

  “He does.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  They passed a state police vehicle on the highway, going the opposite direction. The trooper stared into their vehicle until his patrol car shot past. She looked in her rearview mirror to see him crane his neck to stare after them.

  She wondered when the trooper was going to watch where he was going again.

  “What color friend?” Calvin asked.

  “White,” she said.

  A long silence.

  She cranked her window down for more air. Calvin did the same. He was wearing a blue work shirt soaked through with sweat on its back and underarms. She wondered if the plant was air conditioned. Probably not.

  “Think that’s why this happened?” he asked.

  “It crossed my mind.”

  A moment passed in silence.

  Then he balled up a fist and brought it down hard on his own thigh. He dropped his face into his hands and sighed.

  “If anything happens to him,” he said through his hands, “I swear . . .”

  “Something already did happen to him.”

  “I meant . . .”

  “I know what you meant. And look. I’ll be honest. I don’t know if I did the right thing at any point today. I don’t know if I should have driven him straight to the hospital. I don’t know if I should have stayed home with him and let you make your way to us. All I can say is that I was trying to do it right. I knew how you must feel.”

  He dropped his hands into his lap again. Turned his face to her. It looked blank of emotion, and she had no idea what was going on inside him, or what words were about to burst out. And she felt afraid again.

  “You have kids?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “A boy. I mean, I had a boy.”

  She wondered when, in the course of the day ahead, he would ask her where the boy was, or what the word “had” meant in this case.

  “Mind if I smoke?” she asked.

  He only shrugged.

  She offered him one by holding the pack in his direction, but he shook his head and turned away.

  “Wait a minute,” he said as they hurried through her living room. “Wait just one minute.”

  Against odds, his feet stopped moving.


  “What?” she asked.

  “You’re a veterinarian? My son is being seen to by a veterinarian?”

  “No. I’m a licensed physician.”

  “So what are the pig and the owl doing in your waiting room?”

  “I crossed outside my training to take care of them. Not your son.”

  Pete stuck his head out of the examining room. “Oh, thank goodness you’re here!” he said on a rush of breath that seemed to have been held in too long.

  Then he disappeared again.

  “Everything okay?” Dr. Lucy asked him.

  Her feet moved again, as did Calvin’s.

  “Yeah,” Pete called back, “but it’s too much responsibility for me.”

  Justin was sitting up on the edge of the metal table, looking about halfway steady. His eyes were open, but they looked droopy. Pete had raced back to his side to be sure he didn’t teeter.

  “You said to keep him awake no matter what,” Pete said. “So that’s why he’s sitting up.”

  “You did fine,” Dr. Lucy said.

  Justin’s eyes came up to his dad’s.

  Calvin Bell closed the space between himself and his son in one impossible step. It was a step Dr. Lucy would have sworn—bet money—he was too small a man to take. He grabbed the boy up into his arms and lifted him into the air, holding him tightly to his chest.

  For a moment, father and son remained silent.

  Then Calvin asked, “Am I hurting you?”

  “Yeah,” Justin said.

  “Should I put you down?”

  “No.”

  So the embrace continued.

  Chapter Eight: Pete

  Dr. Lucy leveled Pete with a stare he didn’t like. It made him feel anxious.

  “I should give you a ride home,” she said.

  It was late afternoon. Pete didn’t know how late, but the sun was on a long slant, heading lazily toward dusk.

  “Please don’t do that, ma’am,” he said.

  He felt a little shaky. Mostly in his hands, and in the pit of his throat. He worried that the shakiness had come through in the words.

  Justin was settled in his father’s lap in a chair at the corner of the room. His bandaged head was laid back on his dad’s shoulder, his eyes closed. But now and then Calvin Bell jostled him gently to be sure he was awake.